Microsoft and developer Hi-Rez Studios announced that Smite would be coming to the Xbox One home console sometime in 2015, earlier this year at Gamescom, and now it seems that we'll be able to play God (multiple ones, in fact) sooner than expected.

Smite is a free-to-play multiplayer online battle arena that offers a significantly different experience from Valve's Dota 2 or Riot Games' League of Legends, the most popular titles in the genre.

You get to play as gods taken from seven of the world's biggest pantheons, and all the action goes down from the third-person over-the-shoulder perspective, using the WASD movement scheme instead of clicking the mouse.

Most of the abilities are skill shots, and the gameplay feels much more engaging than in similar titles, but largely goes on in the same manner, with players competing on several lanes, pushing with their creeps and taking down towers, with the aim being to destroy the opposing team's main building.

A perfect fit for consoles

Over the weekend, developer Hi-Rez Studios was present at PAX Australia, where company executive Todd Harris revealed that the free-to-play game would launch its beta on Microsoft's newest home console at the beginning of 2015.

"At this point we are excited we have a registered player count of over five million and also we're continuing to expand the game. So, of course, new geography, like the Australian server we just launched, but also new platforms. We're working really hard on a console version of SMITE."

"In the beginning of the year we are going to start closed beta for the Xbox One version and we hope to release that in the first half of next year," Harris said in a YouTube video from PAX Australia.

The game is custom-tailored to fit on consoles, due to its control scheme and camera placement, and the PC version of the title already supports Xbox controllers seamlessly. Porting over Dota 2 or League of Legends would be impossible (or at least very difficult) due to their reliance on a top-down perspective and the precision of a mouse, but Smite plays pretty much like a third-person shooter does.

Hi-Rez Studios' game is heavy on the action, and although it requires a ton of skill at the higher echelons of play, it's surprisingly easy to pick up, even for newcomers to the genre. The fact that the controls will feel instantly familiar to third-person shooter enthusiasts only helps make the multiplayer online battle arena game more accessible.